Dashcam draining my car's battery: Looking for solutions

For reference, I drive a Mahindra Bolero (BS6) model with a 70mai dashcam hardware kit.

BHPian ashwinprakas recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Hey guys, just reporting an issue I've been facing with the 70mai Dashcam Hardwire kit.

Below you can see the basic parameters:

and here's how I'd hooked it up in my Bolero:

The Red wire needs to be Permanently Powered and hence it was tapped from the Immobilizer fuse. The Yellow wire needs to be powered only on Ignition ON and hence was tapped from the Wiper fuse.

Everything worked well after installation and this was a win for me cause the Bolero being BoF and my driving being not so gentle the 12v socket would also disconnect when driving over rough patches, now with the hardwire kit in place at worst it would record an emergency video and I was fine with that.

However the issue of battery drain surfaced during the covid lockdowns when I'd had to keep the car idle for over a month and it wouldn't start when I'd get back, I partially blamed the electronics gizmos in modern cars then completely blame the hardwire kit.

Though in later instances I did take a multimeter with me and noticed that even though the car failed to crank i.e the relay would just cut off, no slow cranking like it was the case with older less electronically dependent cars. The battery had over 11v at idle and it was not surface charge as I'd used the horn and lights to confirm.

In such instances, I would just hook up my Pulsar's 9ah battery to the Bolero just to get the reading over 12v and then crank the car and it would successfully fire up.

Now I'd recently had to leave KL for a month and had taken the Alto with me, I had transferred the hardwiring kit to the Alto and left the Bolero parked for over a month, when I got back I half expected the Bolero to need assistance but it fired up without a care in the world.

So my inference from all this is that the Low Voltage Protection for 11.4V that 70mai offers is too low with respect to the cut off Mahindra has set for the Bolero's electricals which is why we only hear relay ticking and not the car cranking.

For further clarification mine is a BS6 Bolero B6(O) that comes with the mHawk D75, it has a one-touch start setup i.e it is as electrically complex as a modern can be.

As a workaround, I have ordered another hardwiring kit from 70mai and when it arrives I hope to give both Red and Yellow wires to the Wiper fuse so that both get power only when the ignition is turned ON.

This effectively disables the Parking Surveillance feature the hardwire kit is usually preferred for but I am at a loss of ideas, so please do suggest a better alternative if you can.

Here's what BHPian s4ch had to say on the matter:

I believe you could tap the red wire from the roof lamp fuse if you need an always-on connection. But I guess that is for only recording if your car is hit while stationary? So tapping both connections from something that is only powered with Ignition on may be safer and should still record fine when your car is on.

Either way, I would not recommend that you tap from a critical component like the Immobilizer, Starter Motor etc, as in the event of that fuse being blown or similar, you would really be stuck then. Best to take it from a non-critical component like the roof lamp, 12v cigarette lighter etc.

Here's what BHPian Raghu M had to say on the matter:

Sorry if I missed anything obvious but why was the wiring tampered with when it's just a plug and play device? If the socket is coming off, you should have looked at alternatives to keep it intact. I think the continuous power supply that it demands (if there is too much activity around your car when it is parked), could be a reason. But since the power source for the device has changed, the device could be sucking in more from the battery. Just my guess, cannot be sure of it.

Here's what BHPian Kosfactor had to say on the matter:

I would prefer electronic devices to take power from an additional power bank than a car's battery. Is there a way you can connect one in parallel that would switch over when the engine is off?

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